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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-09-2019 Special Action Plan MeetingOFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS CITY OF COLUMBIA HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING MAY 9, 2019 The following are the minutes for the Special Meeting of the City Council held at 3:00 pm on Thursday, May 9, 2019 in the Conference Room, City Hall 590 40"' Avenue NE, Columbia Heights, Minnesota 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Schmitt called the meeting to order at 3 pin, 2. ROLL CALL: Present: Mayor Schmitt, Councilmembers Novitsky, Buesgens, Murzyn, and Williams. Also Present: Kelli Bourgeois -City Manager; Jinn Hoeft-City Attorney; Lenny Austin- Police Chief, Gary Gorman-Fire Chief, and Shelley Hanson, Secretary. The Police Captains, several firefighters/personnel, and members of the community were also in attendance. 3. DISCUSS PUBLIC SAFETY STAFFING s'rUDY ACTION PLAN Mayor Schmitt told those in attendance that the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the findings or recommendations of the staffing study done by McGrath. She said not everything in the report would be implemented, but needed to be discussed. The Mayor stated that no public comment would be taken at this firne. If those in attendance wished to submit questions or comments to the City Manager after the meeting, they will be shared with the Councilmembers. Bourgeois then reviewed a memo she had prepared addressing some of the recommendations made by the consulting firm. She told members that she didn"t agree with everything in their study, and the Fire Chief strongly disagreed with some of the comments in the report, but McGrath was standing by the report. Bourgeois said there are a lot of suggestions to discuss and decide how, and when, some of them could be implemented. She proceeded by addressing each Department and topics as follows: 1. Fire Dept.- A) The Fire Chief has submitted his retirement effective May 31, 2019. Therefore, an Acting Fire Chief needs to be appointed effective June 1, 201.9, and the Fire Chief position needs to be posted immediately. City Council Special Meeting Page 2 May 9, 2019 B) McGrath recommends not filling the Asst. Fire Chief position. However, Bourgeois and the Fire Chief both think there needs to be a "second in command person' , but the title of that position could be changed. This is something that should wait until the new Chief is on board. C) Records of training for all Fire personnel needs to be reviewed and more accurately documented going forward. D) McGrath recommended that Rental and nuisance inspections be moved to the Police Department which would take at least 3 additional staff members. Bourgeois disagreed with the recommendation to move the inspections to Police. She agreed that more staff is needed to handle the inspections, but that it should stay within the Fire Dept. E) It was suggested to consolidate the Fire services with other cities such as Fridley or St Anthony. Bourgeois reached out to those cities and they are willing to talk, but there is nothing to indicate there was a real interest in that proposal at this time. She thinks it is important to get our department in order before entering into talks with either city. She noted that Fridley also just re-organized their Fire Department and will need time to ascertain how successful that is. F) The study recommended increasing the number of Paid On Call firefighters from 20 to 30. Bourgeois agrees this is important but said we need to get a new Chief first and our full time staff in order before marketing for more POC. G) Replacing the Vehicle Exhaust System-McGrath stated they didn't think our system meets OSHA standards, and recommended we change to the system we used to have. However, after doing some research and questioning this, she recommends no change at this time. She told members that Fridley just installed the same system we currently have and that it meets standards according to the professionals they worked with. H) Bourgeois agreed with the recommendation that we need to adopt a policy about which medical calls the department responds to, and limit them to more serious health emergencies. Fridley has adopted a policy and it has reduced their calls by 70%, by letting Allina respond to the non-emergency ones. Chief Gon-nan stated that Allina requests that someone from the City be on site (either Police or Fire personnel) before they can enter a building. Often times it is to unlock a secured building. Bourgeois said she will check with Allina, to see what the parameters are. City Council Special Meeting Page 3 May 9, 2119 2. Police Dept — A) McGrath recommended we add two full time officers going from the present number of 27 to 29. We used to have 28 and with the City's commitment to community oriented policing, this would allow for staffing of the specialized units and drug task force. Staff concurs with this recommendation and would like to implement one officer in 2020 and one in 2021. B) McGrath also recommended adding a full time C&O position. Staff felt this would help the department with administrative duties, transporting duties, code enforcement, and community engagement on a regular, consistent basis. Bourgeois suggests adding this position in 2021. C) The consultants strongly suggested adding a lead Records Technician position that would provide for additional depth and succession planning for the future retirement of the Office Manager. Bourgeois, said one of the records technicians is retiring in July and that the opening should be filled with this new Lead Tech, Another technician could be added in 2020. 3. Human Resources- A) The report indicated that a written policy should be established to clarify work period calculations for Police and Fire personnel that would be compliant under the Fair Labor Standards Act. B) It has been recommended that all applications be submitted to City Hall Human Resources Manager and that all employee records, be stored there also, including for Paid On Call personnel. Bourgeois stated that it is a priority to transition to on line applications, once the new Human Resources, Manager is hired. C) The consultants recognized that there may be compression issues between front line and management staff, Bourgeois said this is a city wide issue .and she is recommending a compensation analysis be done in 2020 which would include updating job descriptions, training and education requirements, and compensation levels, D) With the large amount of human resources work being done in both the police and fire departments, they recommended adding a Human Resources Generalist position that would work under the direction of the Manager, but the primary focus would be the Public Safety employees. City Council Special Meeting Page 4 May 9, 2019 Bourgeois then reviewed a spreadsheet of objectives that were prioritized and included her cornments on each objective. She explained that hiring personnel is one of tier responsibilities, but creating new or additional positions must be approved by the Council so she is requesting their input. Schmitt questioned the timelines of adding the new positions. Bourgeois stated she conferred with both the Police Chief and the Fire Chief and recommends the following timeline: a. Hire a Lead Records Technician in 2019 when the opening in July happens. Then fill the regular Records Tech positon in 2020. b. Hire one Police Officer in 2020 and another in 2021 c, Hire a full time CSC) in 2021 d. Hire a new Fire Chief in 2019 e. If the decision is to keep inspections in the Fire Dept. then we need to hire 2 full time day staff in 2019 and a second in command needs to be established (after the new Chief is hired). The two daytime positions could be one firefighter and one code enforcement officer, or two firefighters whose primary responsibilities would be inspections. f Hire a Hurnan Resources Generalist for Public Safety employees once the Human Resources Manager is hired. Buesgens first inclination was to hire one firefighter and one person who would be a designated inspector. It would reduce the amount of times firefighters are pulled away for emergency calls from scheduled inspections. And it would provide some consistency when there is a designated inspector. Schmitt said she's heard from rental landlords that they would like to have inspections available on weekend hours, especially when they take off work and the inspection is delayed or cancelled because of emergency calls they must respond to. Gorman stated that if you have one or two dedicated code enforcement staff, that issue would go away. He said it wasn't an issue when we had the firefighter/inspectors funded by the SAFER grant. Murzyn agreed having at least one code enforcement person would provide consistency and would eliminate scheduling issues if one has to wait for a certain firefighter to come back on shift due to rotating schedules. He suggested if two inspectors are used that they be scheduled so the rotation times are for longer periods of time to provide consistency of scheduling the wine inspector to go back on the re-inspections. Novitsky stated that landlords are running a business and it is their responsibility to make accommodations to meet inspectors during the regular work week, so he is not in favor of providing weekend inspections. City Council Special Meeting Page 5 May 9, 2019 Buesgens asked the Fire Chief if it is hard to recruit firefighters if they know they have to perform inspections. Gorman stated it did not affect recruitment or interest in the position. Schmitt asked if the inspectors were driving the big fire truck to inspections as has been reported. Gorman stated that 99% of the time the inspectors used the first out rescue vehicle. The only time the big truck would be used is if they had been on a call and they catch the inspection on the way back to the station. Novitsky said he would like to see the inspectors use a non-emergency vehicle in the future if that could be arranged-for example, an old patrol car or SUV that is being replaced. Schmitt asked the police Chief for this thoughts on which department should be handling rental and property maintenance inspections. Chief Austin stated lie thinks it should stay in Fire and it doesn't make sense to him to transfer those duties to Police. Attorney Hoeft agreed and thinks the Fire Department has done a good job with the inspection program since it started in 1992. lie said the program has been fine-tuned along the way, but operates pretty well. Bourgeois, Gonnan, and Austin all agreed that Fire, Police and Community Development all work together, and communicate well to address most situations, even though the report indicated otherwise. Bourgeois said maybe that is because some of the communication is informal and McGrath was looking for established procedures. , Schmitt stated the report indicated that records were not adequately kept for training of fire personnel. McGrath stated they were not sent information that was requested. Gon-nan told members that he never received the emails requesting missing records. He thought lie had provided everything they asked for. Gorman stated that they changed the way training was documented back in 2014 based on recommendations from ISO. He said each person is getting plenty of drill training and the EMS training from Allina is in compliance with the National Registry requirements. Captain O'Brien is now doing the record keeping of this information that used to be done by the administrative staff. Bourgeois specifically asked Council for direction on the following: Is the Council open to adding the Lead Police Technician position this year. No budget amendment would be needed since it would replace the upcoming open position. Chief Austin is working on the job description, so it could be posted in early June. Yes, move forward. 2. Is the Council on board with posting the Fire Chief position? Yes, post immediately. City Council Special Meeting Page 6 May 9, 2019 3. Discussion took place on additional staffing of the Fire Dept. It was noted that interviews for the vacant firefighter position after Hinrich's retirement will be scheduled soon. Gorman stated that rental fees were increased so another firefighter could be added this year. He said that should be done as soon as the new Chief is in place. Gorman and Bourgeois agreed that a "2" d in Command" should also be established so there is continuity of communication in the Chiefs absence. Bourgeois said the former Asst. Chief scent 60-70% of his time supervising the rental program and she would like to see the "2n rin Command" focus on training of personnel and proper documentation and record keeping. The Council generally agreed with this. 4. Which proposal do members want to go with regarding the two positions that will be designated for inspections-one firefighter and one code enforcement officer or two firefighters whose primary duties would focus on inspections? Most favored the two firefighter positions. 5. Is Council open to establishing a Human Resources Generalist position that would work under the Human Resources Manager? bourgeois said citywide software will be changed that will have an HR module to make record keeping more consistent. All employee records will be moved and locked at City Hall. Hiring of the Generalist position will be addressed once the Human Resources Manager is in place. It was decided to schedule a Public Hearing regarding this Staffing Study, to take public comments and questions, for Tuesday, May 28'1' at 6 pm prior to the Regular Council Meeting. Motion by Mur:;yn, seconded �y Buesgens to adjourn at 4:35 pm. Respectfully submitted, Shelley Hanson Recording Secretary